John Ridley, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “12 Years a Slave” continues to tackle subjects that are relevant to today’s America. The unstoppable Ridley is now working on a comic book sequel, “The American Way: Those Above and Those Below.”

In South Dakota, the energy company TransCanada says it shut down part of its pipeline Thursday after a rupture spilled 210,000 gallons of oil in a field near Amherst. The pipeline carries a highly polluting form of oil called “diluted bitumen.” This comes amid a new report titled “Carbon Pricing: A Critical Perspective for Community Resistance,” which exposes the dangers of carbon trading, a scheme in which major companies purchase carbon credits from countries who agree to plant trees or protect existing forests. We speak with one of the report’s co-authors, Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, and Isabella Zizi from Richmond, California, home to a massive Chevron oil refinery. Chevron has said it will purchase carbon credits to offset increased pollution from a recent expansion of the Richmond refinery.

Clips & Segments

Fifty years ago, on March 16, 1968, U.S. soldiers attacked the Vietnamese village of My Lai. Even though the soldiers met no resistance, they slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men over the next four hours.

We speak to historian Robyn C. Spencer, who wrote a piece, “Black Feminist Meditations on the Women of Wakanda,” and Carvell Wallace, whose piece, “Why Black Panther Is a Defining Moment for Black America,” appeared in The New York Times Magazine.

The Secretary of State General Colin Powell’s former chief of staff compares the inaccurate speech that created a case for war in Iraq with a recent speech by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

Articles

Journalist and "Democracy Now!" host Amy Goodman stopped by Link TV studios to discuss the significance of independent media and the roadblocks preventing many Americans from exercising their right to vote.

Frank Lloyd Wright accelerated the search for L.A.'s authentic architecture. This episode explores the provocative theory that his early homes in L.A. were also a means of artistic catharsis for Wright.